U.S. Resolute On WHTI:
By Tameka Lundy -
Nassau, Bahamas:
There are no signs that U.S. President George Bush is backing down on the re-implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative under which entrants into the U.S. are required to present passports.
Meantime, Caribbean tourism officials continue to lobby for a delay in the resumption of the plan to coincide with the implementation date for cruise travelers.
This week, while meeting with Mexican and Canadian leaders, President Bush reaffirmed that he will be proceeding with the initiative as planned, according to Dan Fisk, senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs.
"President Bush reaffirmed that we will be going ahead and implementing the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative as required by our legislation, but they were also sensitive to the need to facilitate the travel -- the exchange and the movement between legitimate travelers and commerce," Mr. Fisk reported this week.
Just recently, Bahamas Hotel Association [BHA] President Russell Miller announced that the Association has written the United States Congress seeking additional relief from the WHTI.
The letter was sent in light of the fact that Congress was seeking public comment until August 27, on a new proposal to grant US citizens traveling on cruise ships departing from and returning to the same U.S. port a permanent exemption from the new passport requirement.
The US Department of Homeland Security and Department of State recently published the proposed regulations.
BHA officials reported that 2007 hotel occupancy numbers started off slowly, with first quarter occupancies and arrivals in New Providence and Grand Bahama well below 2006 levels and below projections. They said April and May also saw a continuation of the downward trend in arrival numbers.
Mr. Miller said WHTI was a major factor in the downward trend during the first five months of 2007.
"The WHTI continues to be the biggest drawback to our arrivals situation. During the second quarter we saw a particularly adverse impact on impulse travel, group business and spring break business," he said.
The Secretary General of the Caribbean Tourism Organization Vincent Vanderpool Wallace said recently that losses as a result of the WHTI have mounted considerably and could continue to do so if there are not additional delays for the implementation of the measure.
Mr. Vanderpool Wallace said his estimate is that for the first four months of the year the passport initiative cost the Caribbean region about US$400 million and if the trend continued, it would be over a billion dollars before the end of the year.
"A number of people have come to The Bahamas on impulse," he said at the time. "If you don’t have a passport there’s no way you can come on impulse and those people pay whatever the asking rate is, so you have the potential of significant loss for The Bahamas as a result of this Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative."
It’s a point that Mr. Miller echoed when he reported declining hotel occupancy figures.
Despite the challenges that Caribbean tourism officials say they continue to experience, the resolve of the U.S. government in moving ahead with WHTI appears set.
"We are committed to implementing WHTI, but we are committed to implementing it in a reasonable way," reiterated Mr. Fisk.
"…So we are going to do that in a way that we think also meets our security interests."
U.S. citizens traveling to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda or countries in the Caribbean region who have applied for, but not yet received passports, are being allowed to re-enter the United States by air by simply presenting a government issued photo identification and Department of State official proof of application for a passport through September 30, 2007, the department announced recently.
The move was made after officials were burdened with processing massive amounts of applications in the face of record-breaking demand.
The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative was mandated by Congress in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to strengthen border security and facilitate entry into the United States for citizens and legitimate international visitors. WHTI requirements for air travel took effect on January 23, 2007, but an extension has been granted.
22 August 2007
